John Knox and the Reformation eBook

These are unfortunately examples of Knox’s Christianity.
{71b} It is very easy for modern historians and biographers
to speak with genial applause of the prophet’s
manly bluffness. But if we put ourselves in
the position of opponents whom he was trying to convert,
of the two Marys for example, we cannot but perceive
that his method was hopelessly mistaken. In
attempting to evangelise an Euahlayi black fellow,
we should not begin by threats of damnation, and by
railing accusations against his god, Baiame.

Knox was about this time summoned to be one of the
preachers to the English at Geneva. He sent
in advance Mrs. Bowes and his wife, visited Argyll
and Glenorchy (now Breadalbane), wrote (July 7) an
epistle bidding the brethren be diligent in reading
and discussing the Bible, and went abroad. His
effigy was presently burned by the clergy, as he had
not appeared in answer to a second summons, and he
was outlawed in absence.

It is not apparent that Knox took any part in the
English translation of the Bible, then being executed
at Geneva. Greek and Hebrew were not his forte,
though he had now some knowledge of both tongues, but
he preached to the men who did the work. The
perfections of Genevan Church discipline delighted
him. “Manners and religion so sincerely
reformed I have not yet seen in any other place.”
The genius of Calvin had made Geneva a kind of Protestant
city state [Greek text]; a Calvinistic Utopia—­everywhere
the vigilant eyes of the preachers and magistrates
were upon every detail of daily life. Monthly
and weekly the magistrates and ministers met to point
out each other’s little failings. Knox
felt as if he were indeed in the City of God, and
later he introduced into Scotland, and vehemently
abjured England to adopt, the Genevan “discipline.”
England would none of it, and would not, even in the
days of the Solemn League and Covenant, suffer the
excommunication by preachers to pass without lay control.

It is unfortunate that the ecclesiastical polity and
discipline of a small city state, like a Greek [Greek
word polis], feasible in such a community as Geneva
at a moment of spiritual excitement, was brought by
Knox and his brethren into a nation like Scotland.
The results were a hundred and twenty-nine years
of unrest, civil war, and persecution.

Though happy in the affection of his wife and Mrs.
Bowes, Knox, at this time, needed more of feminine
society. On November 19, 1556, he wrote to his
friend, Mrs. Locke, wife of a Cheapside merchant:
“You write that your desire is earnest to see
me. Dear sister, if I should express the thirst
and languor which I have had for your presence, I should
appear to pass measure. . . . Your presence
is so dear to me that if the charge of this little
flock . . . did not impede me, my presence should anticipate
my letter.” Thus Knox was ready to brave
the fires of Smithfield, or, perhaps, forgot them
for the moment in his affection for Mrs. Locke.
He writes to no other woman in this fervid strain.
On May 8, 1557, Mrs. Locke with her son and daughter
(who died after her journey), joined Knox at Geneva.
{73}